Following a sell-out season at The Tusk Club in 2024, Chocolate Box Theatre’s cabaret spectacular returns, reinvented with fresh energy and new performances. Since they burst onto the Brighton landscape last year with the hugely impressive love letter to all things musical theatre – see our review from October last year – they have not stopped adapting, impressing and reviewing their already fantastic show. Source caught up with them to find out what’s been going on and what’s new.
“This new version of C’est Magnifique features a host of switched-up numbers and exciting medleys, including a Bond-themed segment and a fresh take on Titanic. With non-stop choreography, live music, and an atmosphere that evokes a 1930s Berlin club, this is an experience you won’t want to miss!” says spokesperson Rosie Butler. “The now six-strong cast are led with high energy by Conor Baum as Emcee Cyril.” Furthermore, each of the cast have their own niche, their own special flavour they bring to the whole.
The show features tap dancing, sublimely soaring vocals, stunning choreography and fantastic arrangements of songs you know as well as some you won’t. “Nathan Potter is Gaylord, the cute tap-dancing dynamo, and Jack Thomson is the handsome young bellhop Bert. Jodie Harrop is mysterious French madame Babette, while the effervescent Goldie is played by Hannah Semple who delivers vocals that are nothing short of sublime. Emma Edwards, who plays the indomitable Zelda, is in a league of her own, generously playing the butt of many jokes.” And many jokes there are too, all the way through.
Of the many fascinating and wonderful things about this show is how well thought out it is and how everything works perfectly together. It’s a West End standard piece of hedonistic heaven in an intimate, beautifully Brighton little package. The combination of numbers from comedic solos with poignant and heartfelt torch songs, stunning harmonies in new arrangements of songs such as ‘Something’s Coming’ from West Side Story, the way they embody stillness and let the music speak for itself alongside the flawless and fabulous choreography of other numbers, as well as a range of musical instruments, from a kazoo to a triangle to a tambourine – it’s all jaw-droppingly sublime.
A freshness arises from the relaxed and easy confidence of the six performers, with their incredible vocals and superb dance routines peppered with humour throughout, like a woven silken thread. Conor Baum seems born to play the Emcee Cyril with glorious fabulousness, holding everyone in the palm of his hand. And this new show? The James Bond medley is brilliantly well done, and the cherry on top is the new Titanic segment which had the audience crying with unstoppable laughter one minute, whooping and cheering the next.
If you’ve ever watched Cabaret and wondered what being at the Kit Kat Club would be like, then this is definitely for you. Leave your inhibitions at home, get your best wondrousness out of the wardrobe and head on down to one of their performances. This show embraces the idea of just being yourself, with the motto “Here it is right”, which the audience is encouraged to say along with them. The heartfelt, the poignant, the hilarious: all neatly and perfectly packaged in one stunning show which will leave a happy smile in your heart.
The Tusk Club at The Walrus, 28 March 2025
C’est Magnifique: 25 April @ The Tusk Club at The Walrus, 2, 7, 14, 16 May @ The Wunderbarn, Spiegel Gardens, 30 May @ The Tusk Club at The Walrus, late-night special show with DJ after-party.
Photos credit: Scarlett Madison Photography
